Copies of an Original
by Dancing With the Rain
Summary: Amu is living a normal life...until she transfers to Seiyo Academy. What's this talk of a person looking exactly like her? Why are there so many familiar people in her midst? It was almost like they were forced here...and why are they all so perfect?
1. Wands, Robes, and a Perfect Class?

**A/N Note: Thank you, Mrs. Flamer, for pointing out all these mistakes. Ths is just a rewrite of the chapter. It's nothing if you've already read it ^_^ This is my first Shugo Chara! fanfic, so I'd really appreciate it if you dropped by and gave me some really meaningful review with pointers (because I know that this isn't perfect).**

Chapter 1

_Shine with the other stars!_

My eyes lazily drifted through the words. In other words, Seiyo Academy's motto.

I sighed. How long were they going to make me wait in here? I fiddled with Seiyo's uniform, which, surprisingly, consisted of a black robe with gold symbols and calligraphy which I felt I could make out if I tried to (which I haven't yet), and a matching gold kimono with a pair of black slippers, like the kind I saw on the feet of the Chinese when it was festival day. It was a very queer uniform, to put it at that, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Usually, uniforms in Japan consisted of a sailor fuku top and a skirt, not an old-fashioned robe and kimono!

I fidgeted. Why did my parents send me into a boarding school again? They preferred for me to "interact" with everyone, so they usually sent me into a public school.

I remembered that my otou-san said that it was purely invitational. The letter had come into the mail the day after I moved here. I could still see the creamy parchment in my mind, the fancy script calligraphy and a bold red and blue checkered crest with the famed Humpty Lock and Dumpty Key on it. I fingered the lock right now. Was that why they had invited me in the first place?

I closed my eyes, remembering the letter. It never mentioned anything of the sort, though. In fact, it was surprisingly short for a letter from a prestigious boarding school.

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_Dear Hinamori Amu,_

_You have been admitted to Seiyo Academy. If you choose to accept, you will be put into classes acting upon your level of understanding and knowledge in different subjects._

_Thank you,_

_Nakamura Ayame, Headmistress_

Okaa-san had squealed with delight as soon as she spotted the distinct crest, "Did you know that Seiyo Academy is one of the best schools in Japan?" As a magazine writer, okaa-san usually knew all about these types of things.

"R-really? Why would they accept me, then?" I had asked in disbelief. Was this a dream? I pinched myself to make sure, digging my fingernails into the tender flesh of my wrist, "Ow!" It stung, like a knife, and I quickly let go. So it wasn't a dream. At all.

"Amu! You're admitted, desu~" Suu squealed as she fluttered towards me.

"You better not appear cool and spicy again." Miki deadpanned, "Or else when we chara change with you it's gonna be terrible." She shuddered, no doubt remembering nearly being killed by me.

I groan, not believing that I haven't seen this one coming, "Oh...world...why do I have to go through this every single time I moved?" Every single time, I had come off as a "cool 'n' spicy" girl who shouldn't be messed with. And every single time I was amazed at how poorly I was at expressing my true character. I was such a poor talker that everyone had labeled me cool. Okaa-san didn't help much, either, always buying me goth/punk clothes that did nothing more than to reinforce that image.

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_Maybe this time it'll be different._ I think to myself as the door to the main office-or, as the plate says, The Chara HeadQuarters. Maybe I'll actually come across as what I really am-a regular girl with insecurities just like the other girls have, and a person who wants nothing more than to make a few friends.

"Hinamori Amu?" A voice booms all the way from across the room, frightening me out of my thoughts. I jump, them hurriedly get out of my chair when I see Nakamura-senpai standing in front of me. How'd she get here so fast?

"H-hai, N-nakamura-senpai?" I stutter. It was freaky-really, how _did_ she walk over here from across the room in a blink of an eye? The HQ was _huge_. So huge, in fact, that I took about two minutes at my top running speed from one end to another.

"May I see your wand?" She asked. I star blankly at her. Wand? As in a magical wand? Was she kidding me or something?

"A wand?" Miki echoed incredulously.

"Like the batons in Ran's Becoming Chara?" Ran asked.

"Desu~?" Suu was at a loss for words.

"N-nani?" I reply, the stutter still evident. _Oh, Kami! When I said that I wanted to stop being "cool 'n' spicy", I didn't mean that I wanted to be this! I want to be myself!_ Well, this was technically a part of myself, so...

"Your wand." Nakamura-senpai repeated. She gazed into my amber eyes, which were probably in question marks or something. Wand?

She seemed to take note of my curious stance, and explained, "So your real otou-san hasn't told you yet?"

"_Real_ otou-san?" I echoed. Was it just a slip of wording?

"Oh!" Nakamura-senpai's face was tinged in a shade of pale pink, "I mean, anyone? Have they told you yet that the appearance of Becoming Chara means that you have natural magic? That you'll have a wand?"

"Ne." I replied. Then again, no one I had encountered along my travels had really known a lot about Shugo Chara. The group that knew about them the most were probably the Guardians of the Kanto-area schools, and even they didn't know that much.

"Well," Nakamura-senpai started, "Your wand is a marker of your level of power. Basically, it doesn't take much to call it. Just think of it, and it'll come to you. We have to evaluate your wand so we know what class you'll be in."

"H-hai...okay..." I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of this. From what Nakamura-senpai had juat said, Seiyo Academy was a place for everyone with shugo charas, and suddenly, there were magical fairy pixie wands mixed in? This was complicated.

"C'mon. Try to summon your wand." Nakamura-senpai encouraged, her face shining with an unknown emotion-anticipation? No, it seemed to be different than that...I banished that thought from my mind as I thought hard about about a wand. A wand...I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate.

Out of impulse, I decided to wave a hand over the Humpty Lock. A bit of good luck never harmed anyone. I heard Naramura-senpai's gasp of aurprise. I quickly opened my eyes and see that the Humpty Lock has seemed to changed into a wand. It was very simple, a stick of white crystal that reflected all different kinds of light with the four-leaf clover center of the lock sitting on top of it. However, Nakamura-senpai looked at it like it was the world. Her eyes were glazed over as she seemed to be teleported into another world.

"Excuse me?" I waved a hand in front of her face, trying to get her to concentrate on me.

"O-oh!" Nakamura-senpai exclaimed as she jumped backwards, "Um, yes, let's see what level of power the wand holds." Her eyes were shining with eagerness, eagerness for what, I couldn't tell. I handed the wand over to her, and she took it into her own hands and started to examine it.

Thing was, the wand seemed to recoil at her touch. Nakamura-senpai tried to grasp it again, but it slipped from her hands. Her jaw seemed to lock as her fists clenched, and she threw...something, I guess, at the wand. It didn't seem to affect it, because it settled on my neck to form a chain again.

"N-nani! This, I must-" She gasped, then realized that I was still looking at her, and cut off her sentence, "Anyways, Hinamori, you are assigned to Class 1, the top class."

"Already? But-" It was my turn to gasp. But I didn't know a lot about magics. Or academics, for that matter. Why put me in the top class? I was always, at best, slightly above average in the other schools I attended, so why was I on the top in this school?

"No buts," Nakamura-senpai cut me off, "You're in Class 1 and that's that. Now, I'll have Nikaidou-sensei come up and escort you to her class." Nikaidou-sensei? That sounded vaguely familiar...

Suddenly, I was face-to-face with a person I knew _very_ well, "Nikaidou-sensei!" I exclaimed, "What are you doing here?" The last time I had saw him was with the Guardians. Why was he here at Seiyo now?

"Well..." He started to say as he fidgeted with the sleeve of his robe. Nakamura-sensei stood behind him, "Hinamori, this is your new sensei, Nikaidou." She gave no hint of overhearing what I had just said, and with that, she was off. I could still hear the _click, clank_ of her heels echoing down the hallways.

"Anyways, Himamori, I'm going to be showing you to my class." Nikaidou-sensei said.

"It's Hi_na_mori, Nikaidou-sensei!" I protested.

"Hinamori..." I nodded as I followed him. He opened a door and peered in. I saw a huge array of student laughing, and seeming to be pulling off pranks. There was a guy with hot pink hair that most of the boys were taunting, while there was a girl with long blonde hair being served like a queen.

"Class, class!" Nikaidou-sensei shouted. As the class slowly quieted, he announced, "This is the new transfer student, Himamori Amu. Please welcome her." The class was silent, no doubt trying to see how I had gotten in at such a high class so fast. They were drawing their first impressions. Was I a jock? Nerd? Goth? Popular? The only sign I gave them was my bored stance and red X clip in my pink hair.

Then I looked closer, and realized that they weren't trying to draw conclusions to first impressions. They were gaping at me, with recognition in their eyes. They knew me? Highly unlikely, as I have _never_ seen these people before. I banished that to the back of head, and narrowed my eyes. How did Nikaidou-sensei always manage to say my name wrong?

"Sensei," I replied, "It's Hi_na_mori Amu." I faced the class, and said in a dry voice, "Nice to meet you all."

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As the day went by, I found out that this was pretty much the same as any other ordinary school. What was weird was that it had no cliques in it. everyone seemed to treat everyone else equally.

What unnerved me, though, was that everyone seemed flawless, too much so. The blonde queen-Mashiro Rima, I was later told-seemed to be an ordinary popular girl with no athletic or academic skills. Guess what happened? She-along with the whole class, except me-got straight 100s in all the academics.

The only person that wasn't perfect was...me. And maybe some one else. I couldn't be sure, since I was with the thick of the group in P.E (thanks to Ran's chara change), so I couldn't catch a glimpse of that person.

Anyways, it freaked me out to no end. In every subject that day, no matter what it was, the majority of the class got gold stars, 100, A pluses, you name the best score, they got it. And they got them in record-breaking times, too! They made it seem so easy...but then why did I struggle so? Those problems that Nikaidou-sensei gave us were hard...terribly so.

I was sitting down, ready to eat my lunch, I caught a glimpse of very familiar purple hair. I smiled. It reminded me of Fujisaki Nadeshiko, a friend of mine in the Guardians...we had meet when we were both in fifth grade, three years back.

"Amu-chan? Is that you?" A voice asked-it seemed vaguely familiar, somehow, yet still managed to freak me out.

"GAH!" I turned my head around, ready to kill the person who scared me out of my wits.

"You haven't changed, Amu-chan. And that's still a cute reaction ^_~" Nadeshiko?


	2. Do You All Know Me From Somewhere?

**A/N Note: ...So you guys are perfectly okay with me making this Nagamu (Nagihiko and Amu)? There's a poll up in my profile...if you have an opinion on what pairing you want me to write about, then vote ^_^ Nagamu is in the lead right now. I'm not doing any fluff yet, but, please, go to my profile and VOTE!  
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Chapter 2

"Nadeshiko?" I turn to see the said person smiling at me, "It's you!"

"Yep." She grins. I haven't seen her in a long time. So long, in fact, that I've almost forgotten how she looked like. Seeing her again brings back memories of my time as the Joker of the Guardians.

I drop my voice off to a whisper, "How was your battle against Easter? What happened after I left Tokyo?"

"Oh, that?" Nadeshiko smiles, "It turned out that the boss of Easter was just this misguided boy, about Ami's age. He was so lonely, and part of that was because of his grandfather, who kept pressuring him to not show any emotion..."

"Really?" A little boy? About Ami's age? And he was being pressured to become a stoic businessman. It sounded so _wrong_. I mean, look at my little sister, Ami. She's as childish as they come (although Yaya Yuki from the Guardians probably gets the medal). She's always wearing frilly dresses, and seems be able to show her emotions...a bit too well, if you asked me. And just thinking about her in that position...I felt sorry for that boy.

"Hai. After that, it kind of died down. We never found the Embryo, though." Nadeshiko confided, "And we got some new Guardian members before I transfered here."

"You transferred here, too?" I asked.

"A bit before you." Nadeshiko smiled, "In fact, most of the Guardians are here, though they're in different classes. I barely made it into Class 1." Most of the Guardians? I was at a blank. I guess that Seiyo Academy really did like people with charas...right?

"Wow," I say, because I'm not sure how else to respond to this weird bit of information. _All_ the Guardians were accepted into this school? What were their talents? I guess Nadeshiko's was her ability to dance, Kukai's sports, Yaya's...and Tasade's...? I brushed that off as Nadeshiko started talking about the school in general.

"Class 1 is for the top students...they're really good, it's almost like they're robots..." Nadeshiko was correct. So far, into this day, all the class were perfect, almost like robots. Alas, it wasn't possible. They couldn't be-technology wasn't advanced enough for that. Also, they didn't have mechanical voices.

"That's impossible, though." I laugh it off. It wasn't...right?

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As the day went on, though, I could've sworn that it _was_ true. The class freaked me out to no end. And they never used any chara changes to help them get those top scores!

During Math, I was at odds and ends with the trigonometry problem. i almost wanted to _strangle_ the numbers, letters, and symbols-but they just floated out of my reach, laughing all the while.

"Why don't I have a chara that was smart and could do math?" I murmured to myself as I blankly stared at the paper crammed to the brim with math problems. The figures swam in my mind. My head was spinning, and I knew I'd be having nightmares about this tonight. My charas just shrugged, and I groaned.

"I guess I'll have to ask one of my classmates, ne?" Ran, Miki, and Suu nodded. I quickly scanned the room, crossing out asking Nadeshiko. She was sitting on the other side of the room, and Nikaidou-sensei might catch me in the act. When I was in Tokyo, maybe not, but it's been three years since then, and who knows how much he's changed since my last encounters with him?

I settled for a group of girls, all chattering, lounging in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I proceeded to poke the girl nearest to me to ask for help.

"Excuse me?" I asked one of them, a girl with reddish hair and greenish-brownish eyes, "Can you help me on this problem?" It was a complicated trigonometry question, and I was sure that it included the Law of Cosines...? Or was it Sines...?

She scoffed, "Wow, Amu-chan, I thought that you were the one and only brainiac. What happened?" Wait...Amu-_chan_? I didn't give her permission to address me on more familiar terms! Who did she think she was?

"It's Hinamori to you." I corrected.

She smirked, "What, now you developed this "cool" attitude, Amu? What is up with you, you brainiac?" Brainiac? I floundered. I wasn't one-if I was, why would I be asking her for _help_? And I really needed it.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, because there's no way I've seen this girl before, and she's referring to me in such a manner that you'd think that we knew each other. Which we don't, by the way.

The girl proceeded to flick some of her curly red hair and turn her nose up at me, "After I so generously took you under my wing...I made you _popular_. And now this is how you repay me after you transferred overseas a year ago? By being so mean?" She turned her head away from me, "And why would _you_ need help? I should be asking _you_ to help _me_."

Huh? I racked through my brain, trying to pinpoint her face to a school. No, it wasn't in Tokyo...nor in Shanghai...not in New York City...so where could I have met her?

"Saaya Yamabuki-sama, do you have anything else for us to do?" the girls chorused. My eyebrow raised. They were using the horrific -sama to one of their fellow classmates? How weird!

The girl who they referred to smirked, "No. You are dismissed." I craned my neck to see that the girl whom I was _so wonderfully_ conversing with acting like a pampered princess of some royal kingdom. Like she was oh-so-important in Seiyo Academy! I scoffed.

I know she heard it, because her eyes narrowed at me. I glared back, seeing how her eyes were glittering with malice, and how her lips formed a tight line of distaste.

_Looks like I just made a new enemy._ I thought. Yep, this was every new kid's dream-to make a new enemy, a snobby and spoiled one at that, by the first day. No, it totally wasn't on the list of my life goals to make an enemy so soon in Seiyo Academy.

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When the final bell rang, I was so elated. Finally, school was over, and I could finally find out where in the world my dorm was! And I didn't have to stand another minute feeling inferior to all my classmates. I was expecting a prestigious group of people, but this brought that to a whole new level.

The crowd that swept me from Class 1 was tame compared to others, so I could tap Nadeshiko's shoulder, "Nadeshiko?" I ask.

"Hai?" she replies, turning to face me. I scratch the back of my head. I should know where my dorm is-but I didn't. Because Nakamura-sensei had suddenly decided to not give the information after that event with the wand and all.

"Um...well, Nakamura-sensei never told me where my dorm is..." I trail off, looking at Nadeshiko with pleading eyes, "So can you...maybe help me?"

Nadeshiko laughs gently, "Of course I will, Amu-chan! After all, you are going to be in the same dorm as I am!"

"Huh?" I reply. Really?

"Yeah. They put me and you in the same dorm." Nadeshiko smiled.

"N-nani?" I gasped. They _did_? "That's great!"

"Yep." Nadeshiko smiled, though it looked a bit strained. Why would her smile be strained? I resolved to find out later.

After all, a best friend will always be there to cheer the other one up.

As Nadeshiko showed me through the maze of dorms, I couldn't help but be a bit paranoid. After all, what are you to do if everyone's staring at you like you're a ghost that's haunting them? And scoffing at my usage of the uniform. What, did I meet them before somewhere else or something? I didn't get it.

Anyways, as I fingered the hem of the robe, I felt a glare focused on the back of my head. I turned around, trying to see who was glaring at me so. My gaze fell upon a dark blue-haired girl with green eyes. Her hair was short, probably as short as mine, curling around her face. She was clutching a hand on her thick book. Her knuckles were white.

I turned back to Nadeshiko, and tried to keep up with her.

"A-amu?" My ears picked up a murmur, hardly audible, and my head whipped around to the silver-haired girl.

"N-nani?" I asked. How did she know my name?

Nadeshiko turned her head, then asked me, "Amu-chan, what are you doing?"

"That girl...knew my name...how?" She wasn't in any of my classes. Or anyone I've seen.

Nadeshiko's face looked like she had just eaten a bowl of moldy oden. Her lip curled faintly. She saw that I noticed and immediately, a smile blossomed on her face. It looked strained, though.

"I don't know, Amu-chan." she replied.

I shook my head-Seiyo Academy seemed more and more complex by the minute, and it was only my first day!

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As I gazed at the spacious room that was dorm, I was awed. A room like this shouldn't be called a dorm-it should be called a part of a mansion or something like that? "Wow..."

"I know. I was the same when I first came." Nadeshiko smiled.

The dorm had four neat, folded beds, and plenty of room for each of the four to have a some furniture. There were some simple but side closets, and I think that the bathrooms were off to the side. I saw that my suitcase was already leaning on the side of a bed, and the one next to it had a dancing kimono laid on it, with a fan adorning the side table. It was obvious whose bed it was.

I noticed that the other two beds were empty, "Is it only the two of us?"

"Pretty much." Nadeshiko admitted, "I don't know why, though."

"Well, then, let's have some fun!" I said, grinning, "After all, it's my first day!"

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We were laughing over some corny jokes on TV, collapsing in fits of laughter. It was nice, to have a friend by my side. Because of my father's job (he was a photographer), he moved around a lot to get some good pictures of the places he was interested in.

That basically meant that I was friendless for my whole life. Even though I did make some friends, they never lasted long. I always had to move away. That was one of the reasons for my "cool 'n' spicy" attitude-I just didn't possess the skill of socializing.

I never had the chance to be totally me. It was always one facade after another, and I never strayed out of line for that facade.

Finally being so carefree-it was like a breath of fresh air for me.

Too bad it couldn't last forever.

**A/N Note: Am I doing okay so far? I'm not sure if this chapter was good enough-I think I went a bit too fast, don't you? And if you want this to go towards a certain pairing, please take the poll on my profile page, okay? Thanks!  
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